The intent of this series is to answer President Biden’s question, “What are the Republicans for?” His point being, at the time he said it, the Republican Party does not stand for anything. A way to do this, that the mainstream media will find it difficult to avoid, is for the Speaker of the House of Representatives to present a series of briefings beginning on 3 January, the opening day of the 118th Congress.
The intent for the Republicans in the House is to move quickly with a legislative agenda that will highlight what the Republican Party is for. This will also begin framing the Republican Platform for the 2024 presidential campaign.
Part 1, of this series, how to fix education and race relations and a plan for immigration reform.
Part 2, election reform.
Part 3, a plan for fixing a dysfunctional Congress.
Part 4, taking on the bloated bureaucracy and uncontrolled spending by the Executive Branch.
Part 5, terms of office and term limits.
Here is Part 6, campaign finance reform.
Again, let me point out that none of this proposed legislation in Parts one through six have a price tag associated with its implementation.
Presumptive Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy speaking:
How bad and broken is the financing of political campaigns? It is out of control, getting worse for every election, tainting the entire election process, setting up elected officials beholden to a quid pro quo process that aligns them with special interests, individuals, unions and corporations.
Additionally, according to an estimate from The Center for Responsive Politics, the 2020 election saw more than $1 billion in dark money spending. The billion-dollar sum includes a whopping $660 million in donations from political nonprofits and shell companies into Super PACs, more than $300 million in advertising and $88 million in FEC-reported spending.
While there are hundreds of rules related to campaign financing, because each state has its own set of rules and they differ widely, what is lacking is reasonable federal guidance for the election of Representatives, Senators and the President and Vice President.
Campaign finance reform is not a new issue. President Teddy Roosevelt who held office from 1901 to 1909 called for reforming the federal campaign process. He wanted to limit the growing power of special interests such as business leaders. who donated money to candidates’ campaigns in exchange for favors. During his tenure, Congress passed the Tillman Act of 1907 which prevented corporations from donating money to political campaigns at the national level.
The Supreme Court plays an important role in all of this. In a Supreme Court ruling in 1976 their finding included two important points:
One, campaign contribution limits act as a deterrent to quid pro quo corruption, whereby contributors to campaigns are given preferential treatment because of their financial assistance.
Secondly, they established the principle that political money is synonymous with free speech, because, quote “virtually every means of communicating ideas in today’s mass society require the expenditure of money.”
With that background, let’s begin with a discussion of political action committees, (PAC). A PAC is a committee that raises and spends money to elect or defeat candidates. There are differing types of PACs:
A Leadership PAC is established, financed, maintained and controlled by a candidate or an individual holding federal office.
A Hybrid PAC solicits and accepts unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, labor organizations and other political committees. Notice the words, unlimited contributions.
Super PACs are independent PACs that can accept (again) unlimited contributions from individuals and organizations and spend unlimited amounts in support of a candidate but they cannot directly contribute money to or work directly in concert with the candidate it is supporting. As of November, 2022, 2,418 groups organized as Super PACs reported total receipts of $2.3 billion and expenditures of $1.3 billion in the 2021-2022 cycle.
PACs also include separate segregated funds (SSFs), which are political committees established and administered by corporations, labor unions, membership organizations or trade associations.
There are over 7,000 PACs in the U.S. today; the top twenty PACs contributed over $8 billion in 2019 and 2020.
In the 2020 election, Forbes listed twenty billionaires who collectively shelled out a total of $2.3 billion in campaign contributions. While the Supreme Court decreed that campaign contributions are free speech, are we to believe twenty individuals contributing $2.3 billion has the same influence on the candidate as twenty individuals each giving $100?
A former federal election official called the $400 million-plus that mark Zuckerberg spent to help finance local elections, quote “a carefully orchestrated attempt to influence the 2020 vote.”
The 2022 midterm election set a new spending record with over $9 billion with about $1 billion of these funds attributed to the top 50 donors. George Soros led the pack with $129 million
The Campaign Act of 1974 ensured that all donations to federal elections campaigns were part of the public record, limited individual contributions to candidates to $1,000, limited contributions of political action committees to $5,000 and created the Federal Election Commission. I’m sure that fifty years ago billionaire political donations of hundreds of millions of dollars was not a part of the political contribution’s discussion. That was then, this is now and it is time to review the bidding.
UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, a widely respected expert on the First Amendment has published a set of rules for organizations with respect to free speech. Rule 5 states, quote “corporate and union direct contributions to candidate campaigns can be sharply limited.”
Before I get to some recommendations on reform, a word about the Federal Election Commission. Their mission, since established in 1975, is to protect the integrity of the federal campaign finance process by providing transparency and fairly enforcing and administering federal campaign finance laws. But the FEC of late is a complete failure. They reportedly haven’t even updated their rules to include the term Super PAC, much less taken into account all the ways Super PACs actually collaborate with candidates and parties. The FEC is out of touch with the modern elections landscape and routinely fails to even investigate serious violations.
I agree with Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness who said, quote “If we are going to have a democracy that works for everyone, we need to greatly curb the influence of billionaire money in our politics.”
It is my intent to have House committees begin immediately to thoroughly investigate and lay out for all America to see what influence the doners, who can and do lay out tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, can have on election outcomes. Then we will produce and pass a Campaign Finance Reform Act to restrict donor influence and the resulting quid pro quo.
The Campaign Finance Reform Act will look something like this:
Campaign financing for all federal candidates will consist of one, and only one, source; the source is the voter who is geographically associated with the candidate. For example, any registered voter in the U.S. may donate to a presidential candidate; any registered voter in a state may contribute to their U.S. Senatorial candidates; and any registered voter in a congressional district may contribute to a House of Representative contest.
The amount that can be contributed by any single registered voter to any single candidate cannot exceed $1,000 or $2,000 or $5,000, the amount to be determined during the House debate. This limit also applies to the candidates themselves.
Anyone found to have contributed more than the limit to a single candidate will be guilty of a federal offence and subject to a fine of $25,000 each offence.
Before this reform takes place, we will have passed a Voter ID Act and from that every state will have an accurate and up-to-date listing of eligible voters which will be key to policing contributions so that the Federal Election Commission can accomplish its mission. Every contribution must contain the voter ID number of the contributor and each candidate must keep scrupulous accounting records of every contribution that can be accessed, sorted and reviewed by both name and voter ID number.
Every national candidate must publish their contributions and expenditures on line in an accounting format specified by the FEC and the data must be updated every time there is an accounting transaction. The FEC will have an auditor in every Congressional District during the election process that will constantly pour over the approximately 500 candidate accounting web sites. The objective will be to ensure contributions do not exceed the limit, that a contributor can only contribute once during the primaries and once during the general election and that expenditures and income are equal.
Also, during each calendar year of a national election, the FEC will create some number of panels consisting of three retired federal judges for each panel. All accounting irregularities will be immediately referred to a FEC panel of judges. If the panel finds conclusive evidence of gross campaign finance irregularities, the candidate is subject to disqualification.
The objective is that we-the-people, eligible voters, make political contributions directly to candidates and that no other individual or PAC or union or corporation or other group be allowed to do so.
Bottom line, the 2020 and 2022 elections have clearly demonstrated that the process is completely out of control and not in the nation’s best interest. Recall that in November, 2022 when the Georgia Senatorial race went into a 30-day runoff there was an almost immediate infusion of tens of millions of dollars. We simply have to return the entire election process to we-the-people before it destroys us. Will we really miss the thousands of TV ads most of which seem to consist of a character assignation of a candidate’s opponent?
Any questions?
OK, see you all tomorrow for some more House legislations in the 118th Congress.
Author’s note:
The next proposed Speaker presentation to America outlining the legislative agenda for the 118th Congress will soon appear entitled, WHAT’S NEXT REPUBLICANS? (Part 7 Fix the Primary Election Process and Timeline).
Republicans have to educate the American people that the numerous and significant nation-wide problems can be fixed and they will lead the process. Therefore, again I ask, if any of you who agree with what I have proposed in Part 6, and if you have contact with any movers-and-shakers in Washington, please provide them a copy. Thank you. Marv
Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army, retired, is the author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders, and a new book May 2022, FIX THE SYSTEMS, TRANSFORM AMERICA as well as the author of a blog WeThePeopleSpeaking.com